Why does everyone keep telling me I'm supposed to hate the way I'm living my own life?
That's the big question these days-- or the most abstracted, slightly less terrifying version of the real question; "will Marvin give me my life back"? It'd be bad enough if it was just him playing whatever sick game he's got in mind (for what it's worth, he did at least follow through on securing an Inn reservation), but I've been hearing it from all around me. Heather. The way Ainsley's circle clearly doesn't know what to do with me. Even before the Inn, from my parents. Not explicitly, but the way they always come across as underwhelmed when they ask how I've been doing since I moved out.
Often I feel like whatever's going on with me, I've only worsened Ainsley's life with it, in her absence. But this life makes me spend a lot more time talking to people than I have since I was a kid. First her coworkers, then I stopped turning down her friends (as often), and as separate as I feel from all of these people it's ultimately more satisfying to talk with them rather than be talked at, now that I've picked up enough to be able to do that occasionally. And sometimes, the conversation will turn to something completely mundane, and I can chime in, or make a joke, and for a couple minutes I'm able to forget myself and feel like I'm not an interloper, like I'm normal.
And isn't that just what it is? Completely normal? I can't think of anything more normal than getting lunch with your coworkers or chatting with (the people who think they're) your friends. Back home, I'm always by myself whenever I'm at the dining hall-- how often you think Ainsley ever got lunch by herself in college? Once or twice a month, tops? There's only a couple people I ever really talk to, and with all the free time I get from not having a life I just... tend to my plants. God, I miss my plants. That was something in my life that made sense, dammit. But now I'm more social than I've ever been, off of a completely different person's inertia, and when I'm not freaking the hell out or waiting to be alone again it can actually be kind of nice! Sometimes. And that terrifies me, because if something that basic feels that abnormal to me, then it only raises the voice in the back of my head telling me that my tormentors are right. That Isaac Strauss couldn't live his own life.
I was considering all this as I arrived back at the apartment from the latest installment of "Brunch With The Girls" at around 2 PM, just in time to see a still-groggy Heather fumble around the kitchen for some cereal. My plan was to head to my room and exchange the floral sundress (damn this city, making stuff like that the uniform for Ainsley's group in mid-February) for something warmer, since we keep the A/C inadvisably high in here. But when I saw her I just couldn't help myself and ask her if my own life is really that depressing.
"Oh my god." She looked like she was about to slam her face in her cereal. I've seen her do it before. "Okay, look. Do you actually think asking me this shit for the twentieth time's gonna make the Marvin, thing, suck any less? I'm gonna try asking you something-- What would you do if we stayed?"
"What?"
"I'm just saying. Suppose we stayed. What kind of Ainsley would you want to be? How much of her would you keep, if you had the choice?"
"I'm very concerned by the we in that hypothetical."
"Look, I'm just--" Heather caught herself, apparently thoughtful enough to at least appear guilty. "Okay. Forget about me. Forget about Marvin, or the real Ainsley, or the mom she's subbing for, or some other body you might end up in, or anything. This is about you, doing what you want. What would you do?"
I thought about it for a little while. It's a tough question, even harder than resisting the temptation to dispute the question's premise.
"I... I don't know. It's not like I've had much of a reason to think about it. You know, actually? I'd get some plants. Some nice vines. That's the first thing I'd do. Besides that, I don't know, and I try not to imagine it."
"So why haven't you done that already? Too busy knitting?"
"It's not that, it's, well..." I couldn't bring myself to look anywhere above the floor. "It'd feel like I'm cheating on the ones in my dorm-- Hey!" I heard a loud snort and some barely restrained giggling. "It's not that funny!"
"Sure." Heather let out that wide smile she always gets whenever she thinks she's gotten the upper hand in a conversation. "But what I'm saying is, I think you should try doing something on your terms. Not Ainsley's. Not Marvin's. Yours. Take initiative or control of anything, for once, God."
"And then what? Am I supposed to convince Marvin I deserve my own life? Play along with that, that rat? I don't think he's earned the good faith of the assumption he hasn't already decided what he's going to do with my body, one way or the other! I don't know what's going to happen, and it feels like even the act of going along with him would be handing him a victory."
"That's what I'm saying, dumbass! You don't know what's going to happen, and that's exactly why you should do it! Not for him! For you! Because you don't know how your life's gonna turn out, or your next life. What if you get stuck as an old man who can barely walk, or a mother of, I dunno, eight, or some empty-nester at a high school's front office counting down the number of entitled parents she has to yell at before retirement!? Just. Do anything that's not Ainsley's leftovers, while you still know what your body's gonna look like when you wake up in the morning. You don't need the Inn to get thrown from one life to another before you know it. Trust me."
I couldn't bring myself to listen to any more of this. "You know what? I am sick and tired of every conversation I ever have turning into a, some kind of guilt-tripping morality play! I don't know if all you people are right about my life, but I can tell everyone thinks they know how to live it better than me." I then took the initiative and control to turn my back on Heather and head off to my bedroom, like I should've done to begin with.
Then I spent a couple hours coming up with reasons she's wrong.
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